CFP: [18th] Eighteenth-Century Thing Theory (3/22/09; MLA '09)

full name / name of organization:

Ileana Popa Baird

contact email:

ifp4a@virginia.edu

We invite papers for a special session at the December 2009 MLAconvention in Philadelphia. Please send 250-word abstracts to IleanaPopa Baird (ifp4a_at_virginia.edu) by March 22, 2009. All panelists mustbe registered MLA members by April 1st, 2009 to be included on thePhiladelphia conference program.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY THING THEORY

"Hannibal, says Juvenal, did not perish by the javelin or the sword,the slaughters of Cannae were revenged by a ring. The death of Popewas imputed by some of his friends to a silver saucepan, in which itwas his delight to eat potted lampreys" (Johnson, Life of Pope).Everyday life in 18th century is insistently mapped by things, whosedistribution in space, aesthetic and use value are renegotiatedfollowing the unprecedented production of commodities and imperialistexpansion. Things start filling the everyday life and narrative spacesin a new way, gaining more visual presence, domesticating the spacesthey inhabit or investing them with uncanny traits. Pope's silversaucepan and Robinson's earthen pot, George II's "fools' cap" andDunton's "modern bed," Horner's "china" and Pamela's bundle, Celia'smagnifying glass and Belinda's "Powders, Patches, Bibles,Billet-doux," Capability Brown's "magic wand" and the trap-doors,locks or keys of the Gothic imagination are never simple objects, theyare all loaded with moral, political, or religious significances whichaccount for larger cultural changes at work at the time.

This panel is interested in exploring the intricate narratives told bythings in the long 18th-century, the way things come from beingpossessed to possess the subject, how they turn into political andmoral instruments, how they constitute or threaten human subjects, howthey create (or subvert) value and desirability, in short, what theydisclose about the history, society and culture of the time.